Published: May 7, 2013

At Elite Colleges, an Admissions Gap for Minorities

Despite the widespread use of affirmative action at elite colleges, blacks and Latinos are much more likely to attend colleges with low graduation rates.

At Top Colleges, an Admissions Gap for Minorities

Blacksas a percentage of 2011–12 freshmen

Graduation rate

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Few black students at elite colleges

Roughly 15 percent of public high school graduates are black. But despite the widespread use of affirmative action at elite colleges, only one college with a graduation rate of more than 70 percent has that many black students in its freshman class.

Stuck at the bottom

Many more black students attend colleges with low graduation rates, shown in red. While young blacks are almost as likely as young whites to go to college, they are half as likely to have a degree.

Hispanics go to two-year colleges

Hispanics are more likely than any other group to attend community colleges, which tend to have more dropouts. They are underrepresented at most elite colleges.

Asians outperform

Asians represent only 5 percent of public high school graduates, but they make up a greater proportion of the freshman class at nearly every college with a graduation rate of more than 80 percent.

Whites are more evenly distributed

Whites are overrepresented at most colleges with graduation rates of more than half.

University of Maryland

Harvard

Duke

Berkeley

Columbia

Notre Dame

UC San Diego

Northwestern

Yale

University of Maryland

Howard University

Valdosta State University

Hinds Community College

Stanford

UC Riverside

East Los Angeles College

UCLA

Brown

NYU

Note: For-profit colleges and colleges with fewer than 5,000 undergraduates are omitted from the chart.